Monday, January 01, 2007

My wife and I are not a romantic couple. We love each other dearly, and we look forward to spending the rest of our lives together, but we don't go for all the lovey-dovey hearts-and-flowers crap that many couples thrive upon. Valentine's Day is completely ignored in the Clow-Kirby household, and birthdays are generally celebrated with a small group of friends at a comfortable restaurant rather than with some elaborate, overpriced candlelit dinner-for-two at a pretentious, overrated bistro.

As for New Year's Eve - well, not only are we not romantic, but we're also somewhat misanthropic, so the idea of joining the teeming masses and wearing stupid party hats while drinking crappy sparkling wine at midnight just isn't that appealing to us. Since NYE is also our wedding anniversary, we have gone out for dinner a couple of times to mark both occasions (yeah, we're not completely cold-hearted), but we've always stuck with early seatings in order to be home well before the ball drops.

Our one nod towards the celebratory nature of the night was opening one of the bottles of Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock that I picked up at the brewery back in August. This was my first time trying this renowned elixir, and I was actually a bit disappointed by it, especially considering how much I paid for these li'l bad boys.

It poured a murky looking ruby-brown with a very still body and a faint wisp of a tan head - not that appealing looking, to be honest. The aroma was worrisome at first - some nice chocolate & caramel, but also seeming quite stale. Whatever it was cleared after a few moments, and it became much more pleasant, developing notes of raspberry and sweet alcohol. Body is soft and smooth, very nice. The flavour is pleasant, with nice notes of chocolate, toffee, raspberry, licorice, and some slightly woodiness, but it didn’t knock my socks off. It’s a very good beer, no doubt about that, but it simply didn’t live up to the hype for me.

Anyway, cynicism and slight disappointment aside, I really did enjoy my typically atypical New Year's Eve, and I hope that you also enjoyed yours, no matter how you chose to celebrate it (or not). While it started out a little rough, 2006 ended up being a pretty good year for me, and here's to 2007 being a good one as well, for all of us.

4 comments:

Greg, What are your thoughts on No Reservations? I thought that he was trying way too hard for most of the episodes of A Cook's Tour. Is No Reservations as 'showey' as Cook's Tour or is it more laid back?The book for A Cook's Tour was a bit better than the series but still my least favorite of his books. I know that many recipes wouldn't work for you or Sheryl but the Les Halles Cookbook is an amazing resource. Everything I've made from it (or techniques I've cribbed and used somewhere else) has been marvelous. If you can find enough in it that'll fit with your diet I highly recommend it!

I also split a bottle of KRE with my wife at New Year's Greg! This was my third one. I think Kelly had about the same opinion as you about it, very good but not incredible, while I find the stuff stunning every time.

whatever: Yes, it's been several years now since my wife and I have done the big party thing on NYE. We moved from hosting a big party every year, to going to parties at friends places, to going out for dinner, to just saying "fuck all y'all!" and staying home.

rudy: I don't know if "trying way too hard" is quite the right description, but yeah, there are bits of No Reservations that are annoying, and almost corny. Still, he's enough of a character to keep us watching.